EThe Michael Chandler Estate

Many members of the Aboriginal art community were saddened to hear of the passing of collector and art enthusiast Mike Chandler in January this year. Exhibitions at our own Cooee Art, Gallery, Gabriella Roy’s Aboriginal and Pacific Art Gallery and so many others will not be quite the same without him. Though he’d never really recovered from the loss of his lovely wife Barbie two years ago he still frequented galleries and art fairs, enthusing about the latest young artist or community to break onto the art scene. Apart from his devotion to Barbie, art, and design, fine wine and food, travel, animals and boats were his greatest passions.

Mike was widely credited amongst his peers as Australia’s greatest typographer. He’d transplanted himself from London to Sydney in 1978 and quickly established Australia’s pre-eminent typography, typesetting and artwork studio here. A recent obituary credited him as having helped improve the work of every single great writer and art director in Australian advertising throughout the last two decades of the 20th century.

When Mike retired in 2003, he and Barbie combined their love of art and travel haunting galleries and auctions and visiting remote Aboriginal art communities. With a background in advertising and promotion, and with children working overseas, they began to champion Aboriginal art through a series of European exhibitions. They collected deeply and sold many fine works from established art centres while promoting a number of un-represented Daly River artists living in the tiny Bulgul community.

Just prior to his death Mike was working on a project that he presented to me as an opportunity for the Aboriginal Benefits Foundation. He had designed beautifully type-set posters of many of the greatest and most uplifting speeches and poems ever written. He wanted to give them to Aboriginal community organisations and schools as a way of motivating young people. They included John Lennon’s Imagine, Paul Keating’s Redfern Speech, and Martin Luther King’s, I Have A Dream. This concern and compassion was a measure of the man.

At his funeral, family and close friends spoke about how great Mike was at everything he put his hand to. We will remember him as a great advocate for Aboriginal art, and a great humanitarian who was committed to making a difference to the lives of young Indigenous people.

He died suddenly at his home at Palm Beach on January 6th at 74 years of age.

The collection of works below will be sold on the 4th of June 2019 as part of our Aboriginal Works of Art auction starting at 7pm.

A special tribute and private view of these artworks from his collection will be on display at our Bondi Showroom starting at 2pm on Saturday 22nd May. Please come and pay tribute to this wonderful man.